Month: November 2012

In Greece, most of the times, the paths are cleared and sign-posted by local mountaineering and hiking associations. The input of these associations is very important, and if Greece has several paths open at the moment, it is in large part thanks to these people. Wherever mountaineering clubs do not exist though, or where their activity is limited, the conservation of paths is lacking the required attention. And conservation is the main issue of a hiking trail. In addition, we witnessed several large scale projects about the creation of hiking trail networks, funded with large euros, that after a few years were completely abandoned, since nobody took care of the paths… A path is not a luxurious amenity. It is most of all an investment in quality tourism, able to bring revenues, that are multiple times larger than the costs of implementation and conservation. Step 1: The answer to the above is to see the implementation of a hiking trails network as an investment. The very first thing to do is to see to what extend the paths that we are called to create will attract “customers’ (walkers). This depends on the beauty of the paths, the monuments the pass by, and how accessible they are. In addition, the paths should be rather ease to walk, of short distance (max. 10km), so that the potential “customers” number would be larger. Step 2: If the paths pass the “test” of step one, we carefully design the total network, and decide on the paths that will be sign-posted first. (mainly the best hikes). The signs are carefully designed, and the sign-posting is done with the most extreme precision. Sign-posting is not as easy as it seems, if the rules of a) safety, b) aesthetics and c) right kind of materials, are used.